The Northwind is a personal website and blog for the exploration of the personal interests, the adventures, the successes, and the trials of its author. You'll find subjects from history, politics, and activism to technology, media, and video games.

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Oct 11 Keep Calm and... one thing at a time.

Staying calm is not always easy. Here are five things to keep in mind when your blood is starting to boil or the rain is starting to smell a little of sulphur and brimstone.

It's totally fine to be angry. It's also totally fine to express that anger. How you express it is what makes the difference between a cool person and... a not cool person. If you lash out with the intent to cause harm, whether that is physical or emotional, well you know which set you fall into. Anger is no right to hurt people, even if they have directly raised your ire and you have to figure out how to channel your rage into something less apocalyptic. The only outcome of retribution is to make the situation worse.

Do you really think it happened just to spite you? How do you think the situation makes everyone else feel? Once you realise it sucks for everyone you'll stop worrying about how awful it is for you.

If you can't control the situation then you must control your response to it. Focus on the latter, accept the former and look for a good solution. Once you accept an event and concentrate on whatever has to happen next for life to continue, whatever it was will soon seem far less important. It is less important: it already happened.

You don't need to choose the best solution, just one that works. Paralytic indecision won't fix anything and you're smart enough to know which choices are stupid. An evaluation of better and worse will not help, doing something will.

Who is to blame is a coward's game. How we're going to fix it is what the cool kids are playing.